Julie Brown, Spring Blossom (ANIMAL & NATURE 2024)

Spring blossom heralds winter is ending. These fruit blossoms - pear, quince, nectarine and apple - burst from bare branches in anticipation of a summer harvest. Inspired by American artist Edward Hopper's lighting in "Morning Sun", I've used subtle window light to create light and shadow on my subjects, against the opposing lighting on the background. I've used a Mamiya 50mm f4.5 ULD lens on an extension tube, attached to a Fuji GFX100s camera via a Cambo Actus view camera. ISO 640, f32, 3 to 15 secs, focusing is with bellows on the view camera. Raw images processed in Lightroom.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.